


On Your Toes

by Missy



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Cheering Up, Christmas Fluff, Dancing, Gen, Humor, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 15:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19726075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Meg's moping about John.  Jo's moping about Father.  They try to distract themselves from their worries with a little dancing.





	On Your Toes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wendymypooh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wendymypooh/gifts).



Winter has stuck around Concord like an unpleasant smell this year. Though it’s only December, Jo honestly can’t wait to see it go, as if it were a hectoring guest she could give a sharp kick in the trousers for darkening her doorstep. Normally it’s her true love, a friendly sparrow lighting on her shoulder, and she spends the live-long day tromping around, skating on frozen ponds and throwing snowballs into her sister’s faces – but this year, with memories of her lost novel and Beth so recently ill – it feels like an odd burden, a lump in her throat she couldn’t quite get rid of, a recipe or a spell that never turned out right.

Meg is mentally and clearly somewhere else all afternoon, her chin in her hand – thinking about John, running around on a battlefield and possibly – no, not likely, as Amy is wont to suggest when she’s in a particularly wicked mood – die in the name of the Union. She is a rose pressed under glass, her face tucked in her palm and a cross expression on her lovely face. 

“Meg, you can’t think him back to Concord,” Jo has said more than once, and Meg has wrinkled her nose at Jo, annoyed at the world, but since she can’t frown at the whole world, frowning at Jo will do.

Jo turns to Beth – dear Beth, who is still at her beloved piano, though weaker than a dead cod. Her fingers play ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful” with the practiced ease of a church mouse. She is not entirely alone in the moment, but Beth and her piano were a familial duo that seemed to almost exist beyond the reach of her sister’s caring words. Overall, Jo didn’t mind when Beth slipped into the internal eternity of her own thought process – there was something about her that was reserved and holy that could not be broached. 

“Maybe we could have something quicker,” Jo suggested.

Beth smiled. “I have a country reel stuck in the back of my mind, but you’ve got no one to dance with.”

“Oh, don’t I?” Jo strolled over to the window and tapped her sister on the shoulder. “May I?” she asked, effecting a grand, sweeping bow.

Meg stared at Jo’s offered hand. “Are you trying to offer me something?”

Jo stood up straight. “You don’t have to dance with me,” she said, “but if you don’t, I’m going to dance alone. And sing.”

Meg stood up and grabbed Jo’s hands. “If you’re going to make a big deal of it…”

Jo kept leading, and Meg, a practiced dancer, managed to fall into the rhythm she established. Soon all three of them were cackling together, which brought Amy down from her room.

“What are the three of you doing?” she wondered. Then she noticed the dancing, that even Meg was without her dignity, and with a shrug joined in with the three way dance.

By the time Beth ended the song with a flourish, they were giddy, light of foot and head.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be a miserable Christmas after all.


End file.
